


Make it Feel Right

by Jokes_McGee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek is Derek, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Please forgive my canon noncompliance, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Runaway Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jokes_McGee/pseuds/Jokes_McGee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d just wanted to bury Laura and find out who killed her, but then he’d seen the house again, and Peter had bitten Scott, and if that wasn’t enough, there was Stiles to keep him there. Stiles, with his flailing arms and his bright eyes and his restless need to always be fucking moving, like he’d die if he were still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make it Feel Right

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my second work on the archive, so that's exciting! I started this yesterday at like 2am, so please forgive my confusion of canon and timelines and such. Much thanks to my sweet sweet sweetest t-money-92 on tumblr for making the sun shine. Thank you for reading this. You make my heart smile.

It isn’t that Stiles is bad with relationships, it’s just that he doesn’t have a good track record with them. Or any track record at all, really. He’s never dated anyone, is still innocent and virginal as the day he entered this beautiful world. Okay, that’s a lie, but he’s never had sex and it’s a tragedy.

Derek, on the other hand, definitely has a track record, and it’s utter shit. He killed his first girlfriend, and his second trapped his family in their home and burned them alive. So it’s not like he’s bad with relationships, it’s just that he has a hard time with them, whether they’re romantic or friendly or familial. He has a hard time with _people_.

So it’s no surprise that when he finally comes back to Beacon Hills, to the town he’d once called home, Stiles is there, ready to whirlwind into his life and fuck everything up. Get him arrested for the murder of his own sister, and then blame him for another murder.

He’d just wanted to bury Laura and find out who killed her, but then he’d seen the house again, and Peter had bitten Scott, and if that wasn’t enough, there was _Stiles_ to keep him there. Stiles, with his flailing arms and his bright eyes and his restless need to always be fucking moving, like he’d die if he were still.

And at first he hates the kid. Threatens to tear his throat out and means it, slams his face against his steering wheel when he’s being annoying. And then he’d been willing to cut Derek’s arm off to save his life, had held Derek afloat in that swimming pool until he was about to drown himself. And something rooted itself in his chest, something warm and bright and utterly fucking terrifying, and he’d been so afraid.

Boyd and Erica and Allison died, Isaac left, Stiles was possessed by and then released from the nogitsune. They started senior year, and it was such a reminder of why he couldn’t do this, why it didn’t matter what he thought he might have felt for Stiles. He couldn’t be her. Stiles was just a lost, kind of fucked up kid, and Derek was a grown ass adult, and he couldn’t do what Kate had done to him. Couldn’t take advantage like that. Not of Stiles.

*

When Derek left, Stiles was a wreck. He knew it was his fault. Maybe not Boyd and Erica, but he knew Allison dying was his fault. And he knew Isaac leaving was his fault. And he knew that he was the one who had destroyed whatever good thing it was that they had going for them.

It was just that things _had_ been good, before everything happened. Derek had stopped threatening bodily harm – or, he’d stopped meaning it at least. He’d started smiling a little; small things when he thought no one could see. He’d let Stiles sit in on pack meetings and do homework at the loft when his dad had late shifts and Scott was busy. He thought they were friends, at least.

He’d wanted to be more than friends.

But it wasn’t like Derek was into him like that anyway, and he knew it. Unattainability was one of the key factors for attraction, and Derek had it. Stiles would never have him, and that was okay.

It was just, he’d left so suddenly, didn’t even say goodbye. Didn’t give Stiles a chance to apologize. He just fucking disappeared, went ghost, vanished like so much dust in the wind.

And everyone said that it would get better with time, but of course they were talking about the whole “you-were-possessed-by-an-evil-void-fox-spirit” thing, not the “Derek-Hale-is-gone-and-there-is-a-gaping-hole-in-your-heart” thing. Because no one knew about that. Not even Scott. Or, Stiles had never told him, anyway. Scott probably knew.

Everyone thought that was why his grades were slipping, why he still wasn’t sleeping, why he was jittery and hypervigilant and antsy. It was the nogitsune. And it was, sure, to an extent. Stiles sometimes woke up not sure if he was actually awake or dreaming, made notes of the time every 47 minutes from the time he woke up until the time he went to sleep to make sure he hadn’t lost time. 47 seemed like a hard number to fake. The numbers could never be the same from day to day if he woke up at 6:05 and then 6:13 and then 7:30 that one time when he was almost late for school. It helped.

But also, he was anxious because Derek was gone and he hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye, to really apologize without anyone else in his head, to make sure Derek had forgiven him for what he’d done. Because he’d done so much. He remembered it all.

**

New York suited Derek. He finished his degree – he’d only had a semester left – and got a job as a research assistant at some tiny museum. He didn’t have to talk to anyone, didn’t have to make friends or speak or look anyone in the eye or tell them about his day. No one asked him how he was doing, where he came from, if he missed home. No one brought it up.

He woke up in his shitty apartment and he went to work and he came home and did it again the next day, and the day after that. It took months for him to go out. He went to a dark club and found some pretty boy with eyes too bright and hands that danced when he spoke, and he fucked him in the bathroom, and then he left. And then he did it the next night with another boy, and another. And it became a ritual, like drinking tea before bed, and he hated himself.

All of those boys felt wrong. They were too quiet or too still or too interested and it made Derek’s skin crawl to have them pressed against him, and he kept going back. Kept finding a new one to fuck in the bathroom and leave. Because the boy he wanted – he was just a fucking _boy_ , Derek couldn’t do that to him, damn it – was on the other side of the country and was just barely 18. Derek was 26. He couldn’t do this, not with Stiles.

So he went to work, and he went out and he partied and he started bringing his own drinks, sneaking them in his jacket. It made everything so much easier. It made picking some boy who reminded him of home out of a crowd and fucking him in a bathroom and leaving him just like he’d left _him_ so much easier. It was all so easy.

And then it was too much. The boys and the parties and the drinking and the goddamn job, it was all too much, and Derek got drunk and caught a red eye home. He slept in the burned-out shell of his old house, visited the train station – the last place he’d seen Erica alive. And he visited the loft where the Alphas used him to kill Boyd. And he visited the freight yard where Allison died, and the bus station where he’d dropped Isaac off, and he drove all around Beacon Hills in a fucking rental car that smelled like strangers and cigarettes and excitement and dread and shame and fast food.

And at sunrise, he found himself in front of the Stilinskis’ house. It was calm and quiet and the sky was grey with the first of the light, and it had been a mistake to go there. He could hear Stiles waking up, could hear the sheriff banging around in the kitchen, making coffee. He could hear their morning and it was too intimate, too private, and he was intruding. So he left.

*

Stiles didn’t know what he had been expecting when he heard that soft knock at his window, but Derek wasn’t it. Derek had never knocked. Had just sort of appeared in his room, all eyebrows and leather and broody sadness. Derek asking for permission, that was new.

As was Derek being in Beacon hills, after a year and a half. “Why did you come back?” Stiles asked without preamble, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t. Derek didn’t respond, just stumbled over to Stiles’ desk chair and almost fell on the floor. “Dude, are you drunk?”

Derek grinned at him, lazy and wide, but didn’t say anything, and that was just – no. He could see in Derek’s face when he realized how fucking _pissed_ Stiles was. The warm light that filled his eyes leaked out, his grin fell into a frown, and he buried his face in his hands. “You don’t get to bail on us and then come into my room all glowy and drunk and expect it to just be okay, you self-centered asshole.”

And then Derek was shaking his head and muttering something, over and over, and he was fucking shaking, and it didn’t matter if Stiles was pissed at him, not when he was so freaked out, and he was drunk and Stiles had yelled at him, oh god.

He knelt in front of Derek and tried to pull his hands away from where they covered his face, but they wouldn’t budge. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I shouldn’t have come here, I’m so sorry,” he was mumbling, trembling, and he hadn’t even been there for ten minutes before Stiles ruined everything.

“Hey,” he breathed, because his dad was just downstairs and still hated Derek. “Look at me, c’mon, you need to breathe, okay? Breathe in… and out. In… and out.” And drunk, vulnerable Derek listened and matched his breathing and stopped shaking, but he didn’t look up. “Okay, when did you get back?”

“Las’ week.”

“And how much did you drink before you came here?”

“Lot. Too mush. Much.”

“And how did you get to my house?”

“Dunno.”

“Did you drive, Derek?” Stiles tugged his fingers through his hair, still damp from his shower. “Please tell me you didn’t drive to my house smashed.”

“Din’ drive, dumbass,” Derek muttered, and a knot loosened in Stiles’ chest. “Walked. Ran. Dunno. Jus’ here.”

Why here? Stiles didn’t ask, no matter how desperately he wanted to know why drunk Derek came to see him, over all the other people he could’ve gone to see. Scott, Peter, fucking Deaton would’ve made more sense than some kid he actively hated. And Stiles was so sure that Derek hated him, would probably smash his face in when he woke up or something, but right now Derek was drunk. He couldn’t send him away.

“You need to sleep, Sourwolf,” he murmured and pulled Derek out of the desk chair, sat him on the edge of the bed. He helped him out of his jacket and shoes, and wordlessly tugged him under the blanket. He slipped in after him and very carefully did not touch the man in his bed, no matter how much he wanted to curl into his warmth and rest his hand on his chest and sleep.

**

Anxiety flooded Derek’s system as soon as he opened his eyes. He was not in his apartment. He was somewhere unfamiliar and his head hurt and he couldn’t remember last night, but there was someone curled against his side, and he did not stay with the boys. He never stayed with the boys. He fucked them in a bathroom or an alley or his car, and then he left.

But not last night, apparently. Last night he stayed, and now this boy with soft brown hair was pressed against him, face buried in his shirt. He was wearing a shirt. And jeans. He was still dressed? He looked around the room, and the anxiety gave way to full-fledged panic.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this was Stiles’ room. He had gone to Stiles’ house last night, had crawled in through the window and fallen all over himself, and now he was in Stiles’ bed.

Shit. Okay, he had to get out. He shifted in the bed, tried to pull himself out from under Stiles’ torso, but the boy stirred and wrapped his arm around Derek’s chest, pulling him closer.

His heart slammed against his chest. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t be in Stiles’ bed right now, because he was supposed to be getting over this and going back to New York and moving the fuck on. But instead he’d come here. Of course he’d come here. Where else was he going to go?

“Dad,” Stiles muttered beneath him, words slurred with sleep, and Derek froze. “Gimme fi’ more minutes, mmkay?” He snuggled impossibly closer, and Derek couldn’t breathe. Not with Stiles so close to him, so relaxed in sleep. His lips were parted slightly and all the lines of worry were smooth, and his eyelashes cast delicate shadows on his cheeks in the early morning light, and he was painfully beautiful.

Derek felt his resolve crumbling. He needed to stay away; he needed to be closer. He needed to get back to New York, but he drew his arms around the boy, rubbed a hand gently between his shoulder blades. Maybe he could make this work. He could figure something out. He could earn this brilliant boy’s love.

He shifted again, this time to tighten his arms around him, to press his face into Stiles’ hair. God, he’d missed this scent. Summer and fire and lightning and home. He smelled like home.

And then the door opened and the spell was broken.

*

“Urgh, Dad, what the hell?” Stiles sat up in his bed and immediately understood what his dad was yelling about. Derek was there, face frozen in shock, with his arms still around Stiles’ waist.

“ – left him, and you think you can just come back like nothing fucking happened?” his dad was yelling, red-faced and furious. Stiles didn’t know what to say. Derek blinked. “You think you can just come into my goddamn house and spend the night with my underage son, and –”

That was not cool, and Stiles interjected, “I’m 18, dad, I’m not freaking 10, and Derek didn’t do anything wrong, so lay off, huh?”

John spluttered. “He didn’t do anything wrong? Seriously, Stiles? Do you not remember the last year? Did you forget what you were like when he left?”

Of course he remembered. He remembered how bad he’d gotten, how broken up he was about it, how much it had hurt. But it didn’t matter. Derek wasn’t his, had never been his, would never be his. He didn’t own him. He couldn’t tell him where he could and couldn’t go. “He’s here now,” he murmured, and rested his hands in his lap. “You can yell at me later. You’re gonna be late for work if you do it now.”

The silence that followed his dad’s departure felt infinite and heavy and stifling. Derek was still frozen, his arms around Stiles’ waist, but he was looking at him now at least. He looked like he was trying to solve a puzzle, brows all furrowed and eyes scrutinizing, and it made Stiles feel like a bug.

“Oh my god, what?” he finally blurted when it was all too much and he felt like he was going to implode. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Derek blinked again, shook his head. He moved to get up, and Stiles felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that made his stomach hurt. Derek was leaving, they wouldn’t have to talk about what his dad had said, and he would just play video games or something until he came home and yelled at him. Derek would disappear and they could pretend that he’d never come back, that this was a dream or a nightmare or a fantasy, and he could just forget about it.

And then Derek’s lips were on his, and every thought in his head was displaced by the white noise that roared in his ears. Stiles’ entire universe reoriented itself around Derek’s lips on his, Derek’s hands on him, his hands on Derek.

And then Derek was pulling away, resting his forehead against Stiles’, his breath puffing against Stiles’ lips. His eyes were closed and his tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip, and Stiles needed to know what this meant. He needed to know now, because he had wanted this for so long, and if Derek was just blowing off steam, didn’t want him back, then he had to know.

“I’m sorry I left,” Derek murmured, eyes still closed. He had one hand stroking Stiles’ arm, the other fisted in the back of his shirt.

Stiles needed that. A loose end tied off and tucked away nicely. “You’re here now,” he whispered. They were sitting face to face, one of his legs slung over Derek’s, the other tucked under himself. He wanted to be closer. He didn’t move.

“I missed you every day.” And Stiles didn’t know what to do with that. Derek missed him. “I didn’t know you – I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know.”

Stiles shook his head and placed soft kisses along Derek’s jaw, against his throat. “You’re here now,” he repeated softly against Derek’s skin. Because that was what mattered. He was here now, even if it was just for the day, just for the week, and then he was going back. Derek was here now.

“I couldn’t be like her,” Derek whispered, and it took a minute for Stiles’ mind to catch up to his words. “Every time I looked at you, all I could think was that I’d be doing the same thing to you that she did to me. I couldn’t be your Kate.”

There weren’t enough words in the universe to communicate how wrong Derek was for thinking he could ever be like her, like the monster who took advantage of him and burned his family. He couldn’t be like Kate. “Never,” Stiles whispered and took Derek’s face in his hands, stroked his thumbs along his cheekbones. “You’re nothing like her.” He pressed a kiss to Derek’s lips, soft and chaste. And then another, and another, until Derek was leaning into it, kissing him back. Until it turned hot and desperate and everything he didn’t know he needed until he had it.

Derek rested his forehead against Stiles’ shoulder and pulled him closer, dropped little kisses along the skin peeking out of his shirt. “Love you,” Derek whispered, so soft that Stiles wasn’t sure he’d heard. He hummed and scratched at Derek’s scalp. His hair was so thick, so soft. “Love you so much,” he said again, louder so that there was no doubt.

And Stiles laughed, bright and relieved and exhilarated, because Derek loved him. This was right. This was the way things were meant to be. “I love you too,” he said, and it felt right.


End file.
